South Bay Expressway to open Nov 19 - tenacity pays off

George Washington, Ho Chi Minh, Charles de Gaulle and Churchill all knew it for war and politics. And for roads Kent Olsen and Michael Schneider of Parsons Brinkerhoff and then Greg Hulsizer with Macquarie at the South Bay Expressway.

Tenacity, sticking at it, staying there fighting, and surviving after your opponents have wearied is often the key to success.

Kent Olsen was reduced at one point to pushing what was then 125 South alone - a one person operation. The PB subsidiary California Private Transportation Ventures he headed up had him in offices in the decidedly smalltown downtown of San Diego when I once visited perhaps seven or eight years ago.  

They were in the maw of longdrawn out battles with the USEPA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service over obscure endangered species. Some butterfly no biologist knew anything about, so they had to sponsor research into its habitat to produce a habitat preservation plan.

First the NIMBYs then the Feds

They'd been at it for years already, getting a route acceptable to local groups. Now they had the feds trying to stop them, first under Pres Clinton then under Bush.

The concession had been signed with the state in 1991.

The project missed every deadline multiple times but the news now is: it's finally, after sixteen years, opening for traffic Nov 19 2007.

Vitae

About ten miles (16km) long the tollroad provides north-south connectivity along the eastern fringe of the larger San Diego area, saving as much as 20 minutes.  The road also opens up improved connections to the Otay Mesa border crossing into Mexico allowing through vehicles to skirt around the region rather than joining inner area traffic along i-5 and I-805.  The Otay Mesa area has extensive development with industrial parks and warehousing.

It opens as a basic 2+2 lanes expressway with five intermediate interchanges. It also has interchanges with CA54/125 at the northern end and CA905/Otay Mesa Road at the southern end.

Tolls

Tolls for cars are $3.75 cash $3.50 with a FasTrak transponder for the 16km (10mile) trip the length of the tollroad or 22c/km (35c/mile) with the transponder. Tolls are collected at one mainline plaza with open road tolling through t he middle, cash off to the sides, and at ramp plazas where thereis usually a transponder and a cash lane.

As a promotion the Expressway is offering freed travel until mid January for those establishing a transponder account now.

The rail-ready bridge

Major structure on the tollroad is a 1200m (4,000ft) bridge over the Otay Mesa River. At the insistence of the state this was built up to 60m (200ft) high to preserve grades needed for the a rail line in the median. It is a segmental concrete box girder bridge. The river below is a small creek.

Habitat, trails, playing fields

Some $20m was spent on wildlife habitat improvements to satisfy environmental regulators. A six field athletic complex was built, horse and walking trails, playgrounds, and extensive earth moulding to shelter residential areas from traffic noise.

$10m/lane-km, $16m/lane-mile

Total project cost was $635m raised from investors on the basis of a 35 year tolling concession. The northern several miles were built as part of the project with $138m of tax funds, but they are untolled. The City of Chula Vista helped to organize land acquisition.

Macquarie funds out of Sydney Australia and New York own the capital of the concessionaire, having taken over the project from Parsons Brinckerhoff about four years ago when it was at last ready to raise capital for construction.

Manager since Macquarie took over has been Greg Hulsizer, a veteran of the 91 Express Lanes.

see http://www.southbayexpressway.com

TOLLROADSnews 2007-10-20